Arranged Marriage

For centuries, arranged marriages have been the tradition in Indian society though men and women have always had the choice of who they want to marry. Even today, the vast majority of Indians have their marriages planned by their parents and other respected family-members, with the consent of the bride and groom. Arranged matches are made after taking into account factors such as age, height, personal values and tastes, the backgrounds of their families (wealth, social standing), their castes and the astrological compatibility of the couples' horoscopes. Generally this is done to reduce culture shock for the bride and groom as most families are extended families.

In most marriages the bride's family provide a dowry to the bride to safe guard herself and her children in the event of her husband passing prematurely. In most families the inheritance of family estates pass down the male line.

In India, the marriage is thought to be for life, and the divorce rate is extremely low — 1.1% compared with about 50% in the United States. The arranged marriages generally have a much lower divorce rate, although divorce rates have risen significantly in recent years for love marriage. The divorce rates of marriage is increasing nowadays (3.5%)[

"Opinion is divided over what the phenomenon means: for traditionalists the rising numbers portend the breakdown of society while, for some modernists, they speak of a healthy new empowerment for women." 

Recent studies suggest that Indian culture is trending away from traditional arranged marriages. Banerji et al. surveyed 41,554 households across 33 states and union territories in India in 2005. They find that the marriage trends in India are similar to trends observed over last 40 years in China, Japan and other nations. Fewer marriages are purely arranged without consent. The study found that majority of surveyed Indian marriages were arranged with consent. The percentage of self-arranged marriages (called love marriages in India) were also increasing, particularly in the urban parts of India. A 2006 article reported that between 10 and 20 percent of marriages in urban India were self-arranged.